Even Though It All Went Wrong
by walkingaftermidnight
Summary: Thirteen years later and neither of them have any idea. A story that was never meant to be remembered. Bella/Jacob. Pre-Twilight.


**The vague idea for this story has been bouncing around inside my wee skull for longer than any of the others (written or unwritten), but I just couldn't for the life of me get it to take on any sort of tangible shape. Then I found a bit of inspiration. The following things all came together rather serendipitously to finally influence the materialization of this story:**

**1- The fact that I loved writing the photos in Epiphany so much. Yes, I'm a closeted sucker for cuteness. Don't tell anyone.**

**2- An incident from my own childhood. I'll elaborate more once the story's completed. **

**3- Laura's fic prompt that I came across a few months ago while cruising the SOB archives. I'm talking about #2. It's more an example of a prompt giving some further direction to a story that already had a basic plot… not me building the story around the prompt. Anyways, this will also make a lot more sense when the story is complete, which will most likely be after part 3. I want to try to reign it in, even though stories always tend to get away from me, going from one-shots to multi-chapters in a matter of seconds (this one's a prime example). I think that for the next story I write, my challenge to myself will be to keep it SHORT. We'll see how that goes**

**Anyways, I decided to make them quite young in this story because I had to justify a) Jake's limited vocabulary (wait for part 2), and b) neither of them actually remembering any of this later on in life. **

**Please enjoy my offering of bubblegum.**

**-Jo**

* * *

_Children show scars like medals. __Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh._

-Leonard Cohen, _The __Favourite__ Game_

* * *

**And Even Though It All Went Wrong...**

**Part One: Fish out of water.**

"Thanks so much, Sarah. We've been _waiting_ for a day like this. You have no idea…"

Charlie was already halfway out the door, completely laden down with supplies and trying in vain to manoeuvre his fishing rod with minimal awkwardness out onto the Blacks' front porch.

"I think I have a _bit _of an idea… I do _live_ with Billy, after all," Sarah replied, cringing as Charlie adjusted his grip on the pole, its metal tip jotting out a series of Morse-code dots and dashes on her recently-painted ceiling.

Audibly gritting her teeth, she gently removed the unwieldy item from Charlie's hand and began to carefully trail her eyes down its length until she found what she was looking for, gripping either side of the divide with white-knuckled fists and producing two pieces with a single, vigorous tug.

"You men always have to find the most _difficult _way to do something…" she mumbled, her eyes now lowered, focused, trying to locate the other joint on the pole. The vertical tendons beneath the smooth copper skin at the front of her long neck tensed as she wrenched the aluminium apart at the second location, agitatedly clacking the three now-liberated pieces together side by side and depositing the considerably less cumbersome bundle forcefully back into Charlie's hand.

"But… but now I'll have to put it back together…" he griped, not stopping to think about how ridiculous he sounded.

Sarah snorted, "Yeah, if it's as difficult to assemble as it was to take apart, then you might want to consult the instruction manual before you attempt to scale _that _Everest… or you can just give me a call later and I can walk you through it step by--"

"Okay, okay, okay… I'm leaving now," he sneered light-heartedly. His feet, however, seemed unwilling to comply with the sincerely delivered statement. His lips blanched as they pressed evenly against each other, and his eyes narrowed, lowered, and swayed with eleventh-hour apprehension, "are you _absolutely sure_ that Bella--"

"Charles David Swan! _Seriously_!" Sarah butted in with high-pitched intensity, causing his head to jerk backwards responsively, "I hardly think _Bella _of all children is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back, considering I've managed to survive this long with the gruesome twosome _and _the Tasmanian devil…"

Charlie smiled, breathed out a quick laugh at himself, "Yeah she's pretty mild in comparison I guess… shouldn't be too much trouble," he jostled his torso to the left, trying to balance everything while keeping his backpack from sliding off the one shoulder it was slung over, "Really though, Sarah, _thank you_. I mean it. You're a saint…" he nodded, his eyes locked genuinely on hers.

"Go enjoy your day, Starbuck," she countered dryly, placing her palm on the beer cooler at his chest and abruptly pushing him one step further backwards, nodding her head out towards her husband in the truck, "and remind Captain Ahab out there to put gas in the truck on your way back, will you? Tell him I'm not eager to spend an hour in the Thriftway parking lot with three hot, cranky kids again, thanks," she smirked, hands on her hips.

"You got it," Charlie laughed.

A sudden, deafening horn blast from the truck in the driveway almost sent the cooler, the tackle box, and the three chunks of pole flying in various directions across the deck. Charlie whipped his head around to shoot a '_what the hell!?' _look at Billy, who was clearly itching to get a move on.

Several terrified-sounding shrieks issued forth from the kitchen. Sarah raised her brows and rolled her eyes.

Craning his neck inside the doorframe one last time, Charlie shouted out, "You be good for Ms. Black, Bella! Love you, bye!"

And with that he turned and shuffled across the sun-yellowed grass, out to the idling truck where Billy sat slumped, his arms draped over the steering wheel, fingers drumming anxiously on the dashboard. The minutes were rapidly ticking away, and a day like this was as rare as it was coveted; July had taught them this.

It was only one week into August, but ever since mid-June… ever since summer had unassumingly meandered its way onto the Olympic Peninsula, it had basically taken over…

Taken everyone hostage.

Day after day the heat rose like translucent smoke in slow, thick, visible waves off the glistening black slab of the newly repaved La Push highway.

Slack-tongued dogs played perma-dead on un-mowed lawns beneath the scant shade of select scraggly, dehydrated trees.

Children pouted as barely-touched Popsicles crumbled in seconds and liquefied on contact with the asphalt, pooling in sticky rivers around their blackened, bare soles.

July had proven that even the Pacific Northwest wasn't immune to an unnecessarily prolonged temperature hoist now and then.

Charlie had always hated this type of heat… the _unbearable_ heat; it was one of the reasons why he'd originally chosen Washington as the allegorical nail on which to permanently hang his hat, one of the reasons why – he admitted bitterly – Renee had chosen Phoenix of all places to run away to.

She _knew_ he would never follow her there, no matter how much he loved his Bella, so it irked him that Washington was now dealing him a low blow so to speak.

The heat had been enough to keep he and Billy off the water since the July 4th long weekend, the seafood supply in both of their freezers ever-so-slowly dwindling away to nothing, and the film in Sarah's old Nikon remaining sadly devoid of any satisfying 'big catch' shots.

Even little Bella, whose closet back in Arizona held three times more swimsuits than sweaters, and who couldn't even remember having seen a flake of snow in her life (though she _had_, through the bluest of baby blues), was having trouble dealing with the lack of domestic air conditioning in her father's house, made worse by the fact that the anomalous heat wave hadn't yielded for even one tiny second since the day she'd arrived.

But today…

Today was different… the _perfect day._ The sun was still high and the heat still lingered, but a scattering of clouds and a slight sea breeze meant that taking the boat out on a day like today wasn't merely a _tolerable_ proposal… it was completely and utterly necessary according to Billy.

"So help me God, Swan…" he'd threatened when, upon the mere mention of fishing, Charlie had opened his wordless mouth and glimpsed with sidelong sympathy at Bella, "I will _hurt_ you if you ruin this for me."

He was alluding to the fact that his wife would never let her 'foolish husband' go fishing alone.

Sarah was a fierce protector, a mother through and through, and just the _thought_ of losing any of them – her best friend, her babies, even the house plants and the stupid goldfish she'd managed to keep alive for _months, _all for the children's sake of course – reminded her of the fragility of life… and filled her so completely with sadness and dread that she couldn't help but convert all of it into hard-headed defensiveness.

Charlie understood this, and even though most would question the depth of his attachment to Bella since he probably spent more collective time with Don Knotts and Andy Griffith each year than he did with her, he still couldn't stand to see her struggle with any type of discomfort.

It didn't escape his notice that she was, at times, painfully withdrawn and resistant to change, and he knew that this was partially because of his and Renee's split, but what could he do? It had been _her_ decision. _She _had moulded Bella into the girl she was

Regardless, he'd all but begged Billy today to concede to doing _anything_ that allowed the both of them to remain on dry land; take the kids to the beach, play some baseball, go fly a kite, go berry-picking, have a picnic... _anything_ but fishing. Anything but abandoning her.

It was easy for Charlie to admit to himself that above everything else he desperately wanted his little girl to _like_ coming here to visit him, to_ want_ to come back next year, and – most importantly – to remember him when she finally went home.

But Billy was not to be swayed. This was a day worth seizing and Bella would be fine with Sarah.

Not _by herself_…

With Sarah.

Charlie had to keep telling himself that… had to keep saying it in his head to allow himself to concentrate on the breeze, and the line, and the reel, and the softly-rolling, shimmering Pacific.

_She's with Sarah... She'll be fine._

_She'll be fine._

_She'll be fine._

* * *

Bella sat frozen at the kitchen table, afraid to move. She hated being left by herself in other peoples' houses. She was a child of familiarity, and new surroundings made her nervous.

Five days ago she'd arrived at Sea-Tac Airport the epitome of distressed, covered in tears and clinging to the hand of Barbara the frazzled flight-attendant companion.

It was her first time coming to Forks alone, Renee having deemed her old enough this year, though Charlie didn't necessarily agree. To him, the thought of his five-year-old daughter on a plane with a stranger (a qualified stranger, yes, but a stranger nonetheless) made him feel almost nauseous with anxiety.

Renee had reacted similarly when faced with the idea of returning to Forks for one more awkward summer.

So it was decided. Bella was ready.

The only thing Bella really remembered about her last visit to her father's a year ago was falling down the back porch steps and scraping up her hands and knees, so coming to see him again, this time by herself…definitely hadn't elicited from her the most massive burst of excitement.

Still, she'd made it, and after almost a week of solid quality-time with Charlie, she'd finally started to actually enjoy herself.

…_Then_ he went ahead and left her alone in a strange house for the day.

The scraping of a chair beside her caused Bella to flinch in her seat. Seven-year-old Rebecca Black strode over to the sink and, as carefully as she could, deposited her sandwich plate and juice glass on the counter, turning around and marching contentedly towards the living room.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going!? Do those look clean to you?" Sarah caught her before she was safely out of sight.

Rebecca groaned and spun around violently on the ball of her bare left foot.

"Why do I have to do MY dishes? She doesn't have to do HERS." She aimed a skinny, tan-brown finger at Bella, who lowered her eyes to the place mat in front of her and tried to disappear between her raised shoulders.

"She's our guest," her mother replied sternly, "guests don't have to do their own dishes. You know that."

Sarah placed a warm hand on Bella's shoulder, squeezing gently.

Bella bravely glanced up at the angry girl's face, but Rebecca didn't seem to appreciate this answer.

"Well then what about Jake?" she objected, "He's not a guest, and he never has to do ANYTHING."

Bella flicked a quick glance to her left to observe Rebecca's three-year-old brother, who was perched on two stacked-up telephone books, thoroughly focused on mutilating what had once been a food item on his plate. He was completely unaware of the fact that Rebecca had just slighted him, and equally oblivious in regards to the grimy state of his hands, arms, and face.

Bella cringed and dropped her gaze to the tabletop once more.

"Jacob will have to do the dishes just like you when he's big enough." Sarah explained, grabbing a dishcloth from the sink and running some warm water over it before wringing it out and stealthily approaching the table, placing her free hand preparedly behind the boy's head.

She held him as still as she could while he screeched from behind the damp cloth, his grubby arms flailing, transferring grape jelly onto her wrists. When she was done with his face she slid the cloth down both small limbs, wriggling it at the ends to get in between his fingers.

He wrenched his hands defiantly out of her grasp, but before he could resume the prodding of his lunch she had whisked the plate away and quickly swiped up the remainder of the mess, leaving him spotless, distraction-free, and ill-tempered.

She began to fill the sink with soapy water, scrubbing the tiny purple fingerprints off her arms and squeezing the cloth out once more.

She shut off the sink, spun around, and flicked the remaining water off her fingers at Jacob, who immediately released a brain-numbing scream that quickly dissolved into a fit of hysterical giggles. She then pulled two chairs up to the counter, turning back to Rebecca, who was leaning against the wall, arms crossed and fuming.

"You can go play outside after you've finished cleaning up the lunch dishes," Sarah stated firmly.

From the other side of the table, Rebecca's twin sister Rachel barely stifled a snigger behind her bent elbow, more than amused at her sister's expense.

"Don't think _you're_ getting off so easily. What do you think the second chair is for?" Sarah slid open a drawer and pulled out a dry towel, draping it over Rachel's head so she looked like a very small, very irritable nun.

"MOM!" Rebecca whined.

"NOT FAIR!" Rachel shouted, causing Jacob - who was staring at the ceiling, head resting on the back of his chair - to mimic her at the top of his lungs: '_Not Faaaaairrrrr!!!'_

"Yeah, well, those are the breaks. When Chief Swan comes back you can tell him how horrible and evil your mean old mother is and maybe he'll place me under arrest for torture," she shrugged, sidling up to Jacob's seat again and lifting him to a standing position on top of the phone books facing her.

"What do you think, bud? Am I the_ worst _mother in the whole world?" she growled, curling her fingers into claws on either side of her face and hunching to his level. He giggled and pressed his little palms to hers.

"NO!" He screamed, his face inches from hers, a huge smile on his lips.

She backed away laughing earnestly, bringing one hand up to cover her mouth, then transferring it to the top of his head, "Okay, next time tell me what you _really_ think," she joked, still chuckling.

She lifted him from the chair and placed him gently on the floor, where he promptly dropped to his knees and scooted under the table.

Bella sat rooted where she was, not daring to leave the twins alone in the kitchen for fear of being ostracized, and not wanting to reduce herself to imitating the animal behaviour of the child under the table.

Bella didn't have any siblings. She was used to living in a normal household, one where no one pointed fingers, threw water at each other, or screamed in their mother's face.

Sarah turned to her again, "Bella, sweetie, did you want to go watch TV while the twins finish the dishes? When they're done you guys can all go play outside?"

She thought she heard another groan escape from Rebecca's throat.

She didn't know what to say so she just nodded. Fearing another accusatory finger being flung in her direction, she slid off the chair, recoiling slightly as its back legs lifted with the transfer of her weight and slammed back to the floor noisily. Her cheeks smouldered as she shuffled hurriedly into the TV room.

Being careful to avoid stepping on about a thousand Lego bricks that peppered the wide entryway – the red ones, for whatever reason, had been separated and fashioned with minimal precision into a random, shapeless blob – she made her way around the coffee table and pulled herself up onto the large, well-worn sofa, crossing her legs in front of her and trying to tune out the continuous griping that echoed out from the hallway leading to the kitchen. She could hear plates and cups clinking agitatedly against each other.

She pretended to watch what was on TV for a few minutes, even though she knew this program wasn't for little kids. It was a show like the ones her mother always watched, one with lots of kissing and shouting.

The voices and the dish noise quieted, and Bella turned her head to face the doorway, hoping that Sarah would come in and put something more interesting on for her to watch.

She almost screamed and jumped out of her skin when her eyes landed on Jacob, who was standing with his back pressed into the corner by the door, staring right at her and fidgeting excitedly.

Bella gradually released her startled breath, her heartbeats slowing as she did so. How long had he been standing there?

For a moment she simply observed him, not daring to be the first one to speak.

She immediately noticed his eyes, which were large, round, and exceptionally curious. They were so black that she couldn't even make out his pupils, and he seemed to have no problem with keeping them shamelessly fastened on her.

Her gaze traveled upwards from his, and she had to press her lips together to keep from smiling at his expense; a still visible yet slowly disappearing blob of soap bubbles sat weightlessly on top of Jacob's thick mop of messy black hair, its presence obviously lost on him. It appeared that the twins had managed to find a way to make the dishwashing more entertaining.

Despite the few suds balanced on his head, it was nonetheless obvious that cleanliness wasn't really his forte. Both of his knees were smudged with dust, and some of the jelly from lunch was still visible on the collar of his white polo. Bella absently wondered why Sarah had dressed him in white to begin with.

All the while unfazed, Jacob continued to gawk at her inquisitively until she began to squirm under his scrutiny. Finally, he opened his mouth with a purposeful, deep breath and squeaked out in a small, excited voice, "My mommy and daddy got me a hello-copter for my birf-day."

Bella raised one eyebrow. She didn't know how to respond to this. She couldn't even tell if he expected her to.

He inched closer to her, getting braver by the second.

"Do you like dinosaurs?" His mouth meticulously wound itself around every vowel.

She shrugged, then after a few seconds nodded rapidly, chestnut curls falling down into her eyes with the brusque motion. She _did_ like dinosaurs. She had learned all about them in school this year, and she loved _everything_ to do with school.

He was standing near the end of the sofa now, a few feet from where she sat, his little dark fingers tangled in and tugging at the hem of his shirt.

"Sometimes…?" He formed his words like they were questions, his tone rising at the end of each complete thought, "Rachel and Becca? They play dinosaurs?" he breathed deeply once again, preparing his tiny lungs for the next onslaught of words, "And sometimes? Um… um…" his lowered eyes scanned the sofa cushion in front of his face, "sometimes they let me play with them."

It was clear that he idolized his sisters. Bella couldn't understand this; she was terrified of them.

He pulled himself up onto the couch, still two cushion-lengths away from her, and she could feel the rocking motion that passed through the abused springs as he bounced in place restlessly on his knees.

He inhaled once more, turning to face her head-on, "Do you know Sanna Claus?"

Before Bella could answer, Sarah walked into the room and flicked off the TV, turning to face them and smiling sweetly, "Do you guys want to go outside and play?"

Jake nodded so enthusiastically that Bella was afraid his head might roll right off his neck. The remaining soap bubbles glided slightly down towards his forehead.

Sarah closed her eyes with a sigh and passed her hand breezily over the top of her son's head, casually obliterating his sisters' practical joke.

"Come with me then and put on your shoes."

Jake trotted behind his mother through the hallway and into the laundry room, Bella trailing timidly behind them. Rachel and Rebecca were sitting on the bench by the door, giggling loudly and playing some sort of game where one tried to smack the other's hands before they could be whisked out of the way.

"Rachel?" Sarah mumbled from within the closet where she was poking around inside a large Rubbermaid bin full of shoes. She tossed a small blue sneaker a few feet behind her onto the doormat beside the bench, "Can you help your brother with his shoes, please?"

Jake planted himself on the hard floor by the doorway, picking up the shoe and trying to jam it on the wrong foot, then lying on his back and thrusting his leg in the air, flailing it in Rachel's general direction.

"Other side, sweetie." Sarah corrected him, locating the corresponding shoe and dumping the rest back into the bin, eyeing her daughter demandingly "Rachel? Help him please?"

Rachel scoffed "Why!? It's too hot for shoes! Just let him go barefoot."

Sarah flung her a look that would paralyze most grown men, "I don't want any more bee stings," she asserted sternly, "Do you remember how much that hurt last time?"

Rachel nodded, her eyes enlarged by the painful recollection.

"Do you wish that on your little brother?"

Dark black irises rolled up into the back of Rachel's eye sockets. "No," she grumbled reluctantly, "When is he going to learn to tie his _own _shoes?"

"Oh!"

Bella didn't even realize that the exclamation had escaped her mouth until after she'd jumped to her feet in the middle of the room and piped up loudly. All eyes spun to meet her, and she immediately turned red, but even the embarrassment wasn't enough to suppress her little-girl pride.

Charlie hadn't even given her shoes with laces today. Nope, she was wearing bright pink Velcro sandals. What a waste.

"I know how to tie shoes!" she announced proudly.

"Wow!" said Sarah, "Can you show me, Bella?"

"Uh-huh!"

Sarah reached over to where Jacob was sitting an arms-length away by the door and hooked two fingers through the back belt loop of his shorts, dragging him across the linoleum on his butt until he was right in front of her.

He laughed animatedly. "AGAIN!" he squealed.

She ignored his request, pushing both shoes onto their corresponding feet, "Get up here, monkey," she teased as she stood him up in front of Bella, who shuffled over on her knees and grabbed the laces on his left shoe, pulling them tight.

Jacob watched in atypical silence, standing awestruck between Sarah's knees as she crouched behind him, one arm hooked loosely around his waist. Bella's tongue poked its way out of her mouth as she slowly, calculatedly made two loops, wound one around the other, tucked it into the hole she'd created and yanked on both sides until the whole masterpiece held its shape on its own, then she got to work on the right.

"Who taught you to do that, Bella?" Sarah asked as she watched the girl's hands contort themselves with childish precision.

"My mommy." She stated, finishing up with a final tug. She raised her eyes to meet Sarah's, clearly pleased as punch with herself.

"Well, your mommy did a very good job of teaching you," she complimented, "What do you say to Bella, Jake?"

"Thaaaank yoooou," he drew it out like a tugboat horn, tilting his head from side to side in emphasis.

Sarah stood up, releasing him and striding over to place her hand on the doorknob. Rachel's nose was inches from the opening, Rebecca practically stepping on her heels. The sun was beating through the small window near the top of the door, and the girls were eager to invade the backyard and enjoy it.

"Please play nicely," said Sarah, apparently referring to prior incidences where nice-play _hadn't_ exactly been observed, "and watch your brother, please. Don't exclude him," she lowered her voice, her face inches from Rachel's, whispering, "and I'm sure I don't have to tell you to include Bella as well."

Rachel nodded her head with uncharacteristic obedience, extending her hand out to Jacob, who plodded over and happily inserted his smaller one inside her grasp. The larger child grinned demonstratively, proving that she was indeed capable of acting civil towards such an _obvious_ nuisance.

Sarah twisted the deadbolt and allowed them all to run out into the sunlight, Rachel releasing Jacob as soon as her feet hit the grass.

Bella followed them with all the speed and abandon of a nervous flower girl approaching the altar, swivelling her head from side to side and taking in the backyard.

It was absolutely huge; in fact it didn't even have a back fence. Instead, the sprawling grass seemed to just dissolve out into the looming, shadowy forest.

She wondered anxiously if bears or wolves ever visited this yard… but her concern faded before it had a chance to thoroughly unnerve her. The three children who lived here didn't seem scared of the woods, so why should she?

"Hey! Stella!" One of the twins shouted at her from where she sat at a picnic table over near the swing set, "How old are you?"

Bella dragged her feet over towards her interrogator, realizing as she inched closer that it was the twin with the longer, stringier hair who had shouted at her… Rebecca. She could hear Rachel behind her trying to pry Jacob away from the swing set.

"My name is _Bella_," she all but whispered, "and I'm five." She presented her full hand, palm forward, fingers fanned out like legs on a starfish.

Rebecca pondered this for a moment, tilting her head from side to side thoughtfully, "Marcus's dog's name is Stella… But Bella's okay too, I guess," she reasoned.

Bella frowned, not knowing what to think of this. Was Rebecca making fun of her? Was she supposed to know who Marcus was?

"Do you wanna play a game? I just made it up." Rebecca asked, leaning forward with her elbows supporting her upper body against the tabletop and re-routing Bella's confused train of thought.

"Okay…" Bella answered hesitantly, hoping it wasn't going to be a 'game' to get back at her for not having to do the dishes earlier. But Rebecca seemed to have forgotten all about the dishes, and the unfairness, and the finger pointing. Bella decided she liked backyard-outside-Rebecca much more than inside-Rebecca.

"Good. But you _have_ to follow the rules, otherwise it's no fun," the older girl warned, clarifying her absolute authority from the get-go.

Bella wasn't used to being bossed around, but she wanted Rebecca to like her, so she nodded, causing the older girl to smile, stand up on the bench, toss her ink-black hair over her skinny shoulder and fill her lungs with air to summon her siblings.

* * *

**AN:**

**So there's part one. I'll hopefully have part two up soon... I'm trying desperately to improve upon my slow-updating track record lately. Please review! I'll try to update sooner if it seems like people are enjoying it (haha... what a horribly transparent ploy for comments. I'm sneaky that way).**** Seriously, though. I will.**


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